Sterile booth for pharmacies



March 22, 1966 R. J. HANSEN 3,242,334

STERILE BOOTH FOR PHARMACIES Filed Feb. 18, 196.3 2 Sheets-Sheet l INVENTOR. zW/mw J #4/1/55/1/ March 22, 1966 R. .1. HANSEN STERILE BOOTH FOR PHARMACIES 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Feb. 18. 1963 I N VEN TOR. FAY/70AM AMMEE/U 4 Tram/5V6 United States Patent Ofiice Patented Mar. 22, 1966 3,242,334 STERILE BOQTH FOR PHARMACIES Raymond J. Hansen, 2460 Oakwood Drive SE, Grand Rapids, Mich. Filed Feb. 18, 1963, Ser. No. 259,242 2 Claims. (Cl. 250-42) This invention concerns prefabricated compounding booths for pharmacies, and more particularly a booth compactly arranged and equipped to permit compounding of prescriptions under sterile conditions in most any type of building suitable for use as a pharmacy or drug store.

There is a very real possibility of contaminating pharmaceutical goods during their reconstitution or other handling in pharmacies due to the heavy and uncontrollable traflic of customers in the vicinity of the compounding facilities in the average pharmacy. In addition, customers of a pharmacy are inherently often sick with highly infectious conditions especially of the respiratory tract which would produce a greater pollution of the air with the offending pothogens. Therefore, so as not to pass these along to other subsequent customers, it has long been desirable to extend the aseptic procedures of the pharmaceutical manufacturer to the pharmacies and drug stores. However, the average pharmacy is ill equipped for this purpose because of its open construction and the location of its facilities within the store. It has therefore become desirable to create a relatively inexpensive prefabricated white room which can be easily set up in a pharmacy in a minimum of space and contains within its confines the facilities and equipment necessary to assur sterile compounding of prescriptions.

The present invention fills this need and furthermore provides means for the close observation of the pharmacist by customers or supervisors to provide more adequate training of internes and instill more confidence in customers, and also to provide an incentive for the pharmacist to use the most stringent health precautions possible. In addition, the booth of this invention provides a soundproof working place to promote concentration and reduce the possibility of error.

It is therefore the object of this invention to provide a prefabricated, airtight, contamination-resistant compounding booth for pharmacies effectively equipped in a minimum of space with the essential equipment for the compounding of prescriptions.

These and other objects of the invention will become apparent from the following specification, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a front elevation of the booth of this invention;

FIG. 2 is a side elevation of the booth of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a vertical section along line IIIIII of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a horizontal section along line IV--IV of FIG. 3; and

FIG. 5 is a horizontal section along line VV of FIG. 3.

Basically, the invention is concerned with a prefabricated booth specially equipped for the continuous disinfecting of its air supply and work surfaces without harming the pharmacist, and specially designed to reduce the possibility of outside contamination. The invention provides means of fitting this booth in dust-tight relationship to any available store space of any height and in any desired position.

In the drawings, FIG. 1 shows a front elevation of the booth of this invention. The booth 10 extends between the floor 12 and the ceiling 14 of a store. The front wall of the booth 10 is composed of an upper panel 16 and a lower panel 18. The junction of the lower panel 18 with the fioor 12 is sealed against dust by a resilient molding 20. The upper panel 16 partially encloses a window 22 whose frame 24 is airtightly sealed by any convenient means to the panels 16 and 18 and to the door frame 26. The door frame 26, whose bottom ends are sealed against the door 12, and whose junction with the panels 16 and 18 is also sealed by convenient means, receives a door 28 equipped with a wrist-type door pull 30 and a resilient seal 32 of a material such as foam rubber around its head and jambs. The bottom of the door 28 is equipped with a movable seal 34 mounted on its inside and equipped with a well-known lifting mechanism (not shown) to lower the seal into position when the door is closed and raise it off the floor when the door is being opened. In order to increase the effectiveness of the jamb seal 32, the door does not have any latch or lock but is biased into the closed position by a door closer 36.

The upper panel 16 has a vertical extent determined by the height of the store ceiling 14. The minimum vertical dimension of the panel 16 is dictated by the height of the fan housing 38 (FIGS. 2 and 3). In installing a booth 10 in a store, the panel 16 is merely cut to the exact vertical dimension necessary and is then attached to headers 40 (FIG. 3) mounted on the ceiling 14. Although desirable, a hermetic seal between the panel 16 and the ceiling 14 is not absolutely necessary because the booth ceiling 42 is sealed against the fan chamber 44.

Air is supplied to the hermetically sealed interior of the booth 10 through an air intake 46 whose edges are sealed against the lower panel 18 in which the air intake 46 is located. The air intake 46 contains a pair of air filters of sufiicient fineness to prevent the passage of dust therethrough. Air is pulled through the air intake 46 into the interior of the booth 10 by a fan 48 (FIG. 4) which exhausts air from the booth 10 through the ceiling grill 50 and the fan duct 38, and is located immediately behind the exhaust fan grill 52 shown in FIG. 2. The fan 48 is sufiiciently powerful to create a partial vacuum in the booth 10 when it is running so as to pull the door 28 tightly against the seal 32.

Doors 54 may be provided for either manual or automatic operation to seal the frame 56 of the grill 52 against outside air when the fan is turned off to prevent backflow of contaminated air into the booth 10.

The booth ceiling 42, and the inner walls of the booth if desired, may be equipped with soundproofing material 53 to provide a very quiet Working environment inside the booth 10 to enable the pharmacist to concentrate on his work and be free of error-causing distractions.

Additional windows such as 58 may preferably be provided to improve lighting conditions and to permit customers or training supervisors to closely observe the procedures carried on in the booth 10.

In order to neutralize such contamination as may occur in spite of the precautions taken, the booth is provided with an ultraviolet germicidal lamp 60 mounted on the bulkhead 62 (FIGS. 3 and 4) in a position such that its rays strike the entire working area and floor of the booth 10, but that the eyes of the pharmacist are shielded from its radiation by the reflector 64 of the fluorescent lights 66. The lamp 60 is so disposed that its radiation strikes the inside of the air filter 46. Thus, the filtered air drawn into the booth is immediately disinfected before striking any object in the booth. In addition, the air in the booth is continuously subjected to ultraviolet radiation from the lamp 60 to destroy any remaining or spuriously introduced airborne organisms.

A fan 67 may be mounted in the booth 10 to blow a strong air current toward the lower part of the opening 69 (FIG. 5) when the door 28 is opened. This causes the dust which usually accumulates more heavily on the shoes and the lower portions of apersons clothing to be blown away from the booth when he enters it. A doublethrow switch 71 may be mounted on the door frame 26 to alternatively power fan 67 when the door is open and fan 48 when it is closed.

As will best be seen from FIG. 3, the connections for the utilities such as, e.g., water and sewer are brought through an interior wall panel 68 in hermetically sealed relationship so as to expose connections 70 for connection to the stores utilities upon removal of the lower panel 18 of the rear wall 72. Alternatively, the utilities may be connected to connections in the floor underneath the booth.

The counter top 74 may be kept free for working space by utilizing the space between the studs 76 to provide narrow shelves 78. Some of the shelves may be provided with a door 80 for the lockable storage of dangerous items such as poison. Additional storage space protruding into the interior of the booth 10 may be provided by a wider shelf 81 and by Lazy Susan shelves 82 mounted thereon. Wherever the space between studs is not used for shelves, the studs are preferably faced on both sides to conceal wiring or plumbing and to avoid dirt pockets which might escape normal cleaning procedures and be out of the reach of the radiation from the germicidal lamp 60. The sink 84 may preferably be equipped with wrist blades 86 to permit its operation without contact with the pharmacists hands.

It should be understood that the booth 10 may be manufactured from metal panels or other appropriate construction materials, and that its arrangement may be modified to suit the materials used.

It will be seen that the present invention provides a compact, highly sterile compounding booth which can be readily made to fit any existing store and requires a minimum of installation labor. Obviously, the teachings of the invention can be carried out in many different ways of which the embodiment shown is merely illustrative. I therefore do not desire to be limited by the embodiment shown, but only by the scope of the following claims.

I claim:

1. A sterile booth for pharmacies, comprising: an airtight enclosure having a door; work surfaces within said enclosure; first fan means and filter means cooperating to provide the interior of said enclosure with filtered, continuously exchanged air; second fan means inside said enclosure directed toward the lower portion of said door; electric means operated by said door for energizing said first fan means when said door is closed and said second fan means when said door is open; said door when closed being sealed against its frame by resilient sealing means forming an airtight seal between said door and its frame; said first fan means being of sufficient capacity for partially evacuating said enclosure when said door is closed to hold said door and frame in tight engagement with said sealing means; germicidal lamp means for illuminating said work surfaces and filter means with germicidal radiation; and light fixture means within said enclosure so positioned with respect to said germicidal lamp means as to shield the eyes of a person working on said work surfaces from said germicidal radiation.

2. A sterile booth for pharmacies, comprising: an air tight enclosure having a door frame and a door therein; work surfaces within said enclosure; resilient sealing means between said door and said frame to form an air tight seal therebetween when said door is tightly closed; fan means mounted to discharge air from said booth when said fan means is operated; an air inlet into said booth, and filter means in said inlet cooperative with said fan to filter air entering said enclosure and to create a negative pressure therein; said door being tightly closed by the pressure differential resulting thereonwith said negative pressure; and electrical actuating means in operative relation to said door to be actuated with closure of the door and deactivated with opening thereof.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,145,196 1/1939 Biggs 250-42 X 2,784,465- 3/1957 Fuchs 203.5 X

FOREIGN PATENTS 484,076 4/ 1938 Great Britain.

RALPH G. NIL'SON, Primary Examiner. 

1. A STERILE BOOTH FOR PHARMACIES, COMPRISING: AN AIRTIGHT ENCLOSURE HAVING A DOOR; WORK SURFACES WITHIN SAID ENCLOSURE; FIRST FAN MEANS AND FILTER MEANS COOPERATING TO PROVIDE THE INTERIOR OF SAID ENCLOSURE WITH FILTERED, CONTINUOUSLY EXCHANGED AIR; SECOND FAN MEANS INSIDE SAID ENCLOSURE DIRECTED TOWARD THE LOWER PORTION OF SAID DOOR; ELECTRIC MEANS OPERATED BY SAID DOOR FOR ENERGIZING SAID FIRST FAN MEANS WHEN SAID DOOR IS CLOSED AND SAID SECOND FAN MEANS WHEN SAID DOOR IS OPEN; SAID DOOR WHEN CLOSED BEING SEALED AGAINST ITS FRAME BY RESILIENT SEALING MEANS FORMING AN AIRTIGHT SEAL BETWEEN SAID DOOR AND ITS FRAME; SAID FIRST FAN MEANS BEING OF SUFFICIENT CAPACITY FOR PARTIALLY EVACUATING SAID ENCLOSURE WHEN SAID DOOR IS CLOSED TO HOLD SAID DOOR AND FRAME IN TIGHT ENGAGEMENT WITH SAID SEALING MEANS; GERMICIDAL LAMP MEANS FOR ILLUNINATING 